Friday, August 24, 2012

Bits and Pieces

Colfax Avenue: Award-winning writer Reyna Grande will read from and sign her extraordinary book The Distance Between Us: A Memoir ($25.00 Atria). “In
this poignant memoir about her childhood in Mexico, Reyna Grande
skillfully depicts another side of the immigrant experience—the
hardships and heartbreaks of the children who are left behind. Through
her brutally honest firsthand account of growing up in Mexico without
her parents, Grande sheds light on the often overlooked consequence of
immigration—the disintegration of a family.” —Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer
Prize winner, and author of Enrique’s JourneyTattered Cover2526 East Colfax AvenueDenver

Newswise — Childhood obesity is an epidemic, felt
dramatically in the Latino population. The University of Houston’s Arte
Público Press (APP) has used its greatest strength to combat this
issue—literacy. Arte Público Press is the recipient of an additional
$400,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to continue to fund the
¡Salud, familia! Project, a multi-pronged effort to use bilingual
literature and media to impact Latino health and health policy.

“As
the largest Latino publisher, it has always been a dream to be able to
reach families who often don’t have access to books and their messages,”
said Professor Nicolás Kanellos, director of APP. “As that dream
becomes a reality, it’s our responsibility to convey messages that are
life-changing ones.”

One successful aspect of ¡Salud, familia! is a
series of bilingual books that feature young protagonists who make good
choices about food, exercise and healthy living. More than 200,000
copies of the first publication, “I Kick the Ball/Pateo el balon” by
Houstonian Gwendolyn Zepeda were distributed nationally to health
clinics and nonprofit organizations for children and their families.
Other books include “Adelita and the Veggie Cousins/Adelita y las primas
verduritas,” and “Sofía and the Purple Dress/Sofía y el vestio morado.”

The
effort also includes a public-service web and Spanish-language
television campaign, as well as the publication of “At Risk: Latino
Children’s Health,” a collection of public policy essays written by
physicians and researchers who make up the project’s advisory board.

Future
projects include the publications, “A Day without Sugar/Un día sin
azúcar,” “Level Up/Paso de nivel” and “The Patchwork Garden.”

The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was one of the original supporters that made the ¡Salud, familia! project possible.
Arte Público Press is the largest publisher of contemporary and recovered literature by Hispanic authors.
For more information on Arte Público Press visit http://www.latinoteca.com/arte-publico-press

The University of Houston-Victoria is celebrating the seventh year of
its American Book Review Fall Reading Series with five authors who have
written novels, poetry, essays, nonfiction novellas and comic books.

The authors chosen for the upcoming season will focus on themes such as racism, culture and contemporary issues.

"Each year, we try to choose authors who experiment and push the
literary boundaries," said Jeffrey Di Leo, ABR editor/publisher and dean
of the UHV School of Arts & Science.

The first guest in the series is Steve Tomasula, who will come Sept.
13 to UHV. He is the author of the novels "The Book of Portraiture," "IN
& OZ," "VAS: An Opera in Flatland" and "TOC: A New Media Novel."
Known for pushing the envelope with his various styles, Tomasula's
writing has been called a 're-invention of the novel,' crossing visual
as well as written genres.

Tomasula is an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame.
He is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Mary Shelley Award
for Outstanding Fictional Work as well as a fellowship from the Howard
Foundation.

Other writers for the UHV/ABR fall reading series will be:

• Paisley
Rekdal, Sept. 27 - Rekdal is an award-winning author of poetry and
essays who often explores the topic of biracialism. Paisley Rekdal,
Sept. 27 - Rekdal is an award-winning author of poetry and essays who
often explores the topic of biracialism. She has written four books of poetry, "Animal Eye," "The Invention of
the Kaleidoscope," "Six Girls Without Pants" and "A Crash of Rhinos,"
and two collections of essays, "Intimate: A Hybrid Memoir" and "The
Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee."
Rekdal is an associate professor of English at the University of
Utah. She has won numerous awards, including the Amy Lowell Travelling
Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship and many more.

• Mat Johnson, Oct. 10 - Johnson is author of the novels "Pym,"
"Drop" and "Hunting in Harlem," the nonfiction novella "The Great Negro
Plot" and the comic books "Incognegro" and "Dark Rain."Mat Johnson, Oct.
10 - Johnson is author of the novels "Pym," "Drop" and "Hunting in
Harlem," the nonfiction novella "The Great Negro Plot" and the comic
books "Incognegro" and "Dark Rain."

He also writes about race and culture issues. Johnson is an
assistant professor for the University of Houston Creative Writing
Program. He is a recipient of the U.S. Artist James Baldwin Fellowship,
Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New
Writers selection and John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

• Norma Cantú, Nov. 8 - Cantú publishes pieces about a number of
academic subjects as well as poetry and fiction. She specializes in
Latina and Latino literatures, Chicana and Chicano literatures, border
studies, folklore, women's studies and creative writing. Norma Cantú,
Nov. 8 - Cantú publishes pieces about a number of academic subjects as
well as poetry and fiction. She specializes in Latina and Latino
literatures, Chicana and Chicano literatures, border studies, folklore,
women's studies and creative writing.

The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, Cantú's "Canícula:
Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera" chronicles her childhood
experiences on the border.

Cantú is a professor of English and U.S. Hispanic literature at the
University of Texas-San Antonio. She has co-edited four books and edited
a collection of testimonials by Chicana scientists, mathematicians and
engineers.

• Jake Adam York, Nov. 29 - York is the author of three books of
poems: "Murder Ballads," winner of the 2005 Elixir Press Prize in
Poetry; "A Murmuration of Starlings," winner of the 2009 Colorado Book
Award in Poetry; and "Persons Unknown." Jake Adam York, Nov. 29 - York
is the author of three books of poems: "Murder Ballads," winner of the
2005 Elixir Press Prize in Poetry; "A Murmuration of Starlings," winner
of the 2009 Colorado Book Award in Poetry; and "Persons Unknown."

York is an associate professor of English and director of creative
writing at the University of Colorado Denver, where he co-edits "Copper
Nickel," a journal of art and literature. He was a 2011-12 Visiting
Faculty Fellow at Emory University's James Weldon Johnson Institute for
the Study of Race and Difference, where he worked on a study about the
civil rights movement in sculpture, painting, music and literature.

Authors will be available after each reading to sign copies of their books, which can be purchased at the events.

Susie Byrd calls "Bless Me, Ultima," by New Mexico writer Rudolfo Anaya,
an "incredibly remarkable book" whose pages an entire community should
turn over and over again.

"When you hear her voice, you will never forget her," said Byrd, the
city representative whose parents are writers and owners of a local
independent publishing company, Cinco Puntos Press.

"She's marvelous," Byrd said about Ultima, the elderly curandera, or
medicine woman, portrayed in what has become one of the best-selling
Chicano novels of all time.

The coming-of-age story is at the center of El Paso READS, a six-week
citywide reading challenge launched Wednesday that encourages people to
read the novel before its film adaptation premieres at El Paso's Plaza
Theatre on Sept. 17. The film will be released at various El Paso movie
theaters Sept. 21.

"It should be like 'Harry Potter,' which everyone reads vigorously before the movie comes out," Byrd said.

Guam - The Guam Humanities Council is pleased to announce a
literary tour with internationally acclaimed writer Jimmy Santiago Baca,
as part of the Guam tour of the Smithsonian Institution exhibition
Between Fences and the local companion exhibit I Kelat The Fence:
Historical Perspectives on Guamʼs Changing Landscape.
Themes within the authorʼs works are linked to the exhibitionsʼ subject
of fences, which are a dominant feature in our lives and in our history,
and are more than functional objects, but are powerful symbols of
security, industry, agriculture, and land ownership. Mr. Bacaʼs themes
include the American Southwest, addiction, injustice, education,
community, incarceration, love and beyond.
He will be on island Monday, August 27.

For more information about the local tour and exhibit, contact the Council at 472- 4461/0 or email Monaeka at monaeka_ghc@teleguam.net.
To learn more about Museum on Main Street and Between Fences check
out www.museumonmainstreet.org. To learn more about the I Kelat exhibit
and programs visit guamhumanitiescouncil.org